Beautiful
by abovethenightsky
Summary: Spontaneous oneshot, musicalverse. Glinda muses on past relationships, captured in a photograph, and the definition of beautiful after Elphaba's death. 'Sometimes Glinda thought she was the most beautiful of all of them.'


The photograph lay, crumpled and withered, in Glinda's hand. It had long lay in some forgotten pocket of a dress Glinda hardly ever wore, and seemed to react almost adversely to being exposed again to open air. The black-and-white photograph seemed to have been yellowed with age, but it couldn't have been taken too many years ago, could it? Maybe it had decayed for want of a frame, or maybe it, like so much else, had grayed with Elphaba's passing.

It was hard to tell during these long, dull, endless days what was real and what was a figment of Glinda's imagination. But here was proof, proof that she had once been carefree, proof that there had been happier days, proof of the existence of a friend that the world had forgotten. Elphaba. Even though Glinda had not seen much of her for the last five years of her life, Elphie, _her_ Elphie, not the Witch that everyone feared, was a constant memory gnawing at the back of her mind. And now she was gone.

But the photograph had captured her essence. They were all there, younger, seemingly happier, at some beach or another at one of the breaks in the school year. There were Shen Shen and Pfannee, those two silly girls Glinda hadn't thought of or seen in years, although she assumed they had married rich and were living out the rest of their lives on some rolling estate with no one of their own age for company. _I, too, would probably have had that same fate,_ Glinda decided, _had Elphaba not invited me to come to the Emerald City with her_. There was Boq, the munchkin boy who had yearned in vain after the young Galinda, and whose affections that Galinda would never return, nor appreciate. There was Nessarose, Elphaba's crippled sister, holding Boq's hand and following him with her eyes from the wheelchair. _She really loved him,_ Glinda decided_, truly. If I hadn't been there, they might have met under different circumstances, they might have been happy together._ It seemed all traces of blame in this photograph led back to her, and her alone. But she looked on, captivated.

And then there was Fiyero. The young, handsome, carefree Fiyero, the scandalacious Winkie Prince who had taken her breath away the first time she saw him. He was so much like she remembered him, so beautiful. _Memories will do that,_ Glinda supposed_, they'll keep the good and casually "discard" the bad._ In all the times she recalled Fiyero, he was the same charming prince of her childhood fairytales. But she hadn't been able to see him as more than that, not in the way Elphaba had. But Glinda loved him, in her own way, in a different way, though she wasn't sure now if Fiyero's initial attraction to her hadn't been on a physical level. He grew fond of her after awhile, but it was nothing compared to the love that he felt for Elphaba. Fiyero, of course, had been standing next to the Galinda of the photograph, the girl who had the epitome of "Youthful Beauty." And yes, she was beautiful, in a conventional way. But not in any of the ways that mattered. She had been popular, but had abused the admiration of the people for her own devices. She had been wealthy, but didn't use her money in ways that could help others, instead buying outrageously expensive clothes, makeup, and accessories. She had been selfish, careless and oh, so foolish. But that Galinda had morphed into someone—else. She wasn't beautiful in that youthfully innocent way anymore—her curls had become tangles, and there were bags under her red-rimmed, forget-me-not eyes. This Glinda, though, was generous and kindhearted, and cared about more than the next day's outfit. And it was all because of that girl captured in the photograph, on the other side of Fiyero.

Elphaba stared directly at the camera, in some strange way more photogenic than all of them, since, in the picture, no one could tell she was green. Everyone else had spontaneously smiled for the photograph, but, Glinda could tell now, they were all faking, each and every one. No one had been truly happy, except maybe Shen Shen and Pfannee in their girlish naïveté. Boq longed for Glinda, and Nessa was not completely blind to it. Galinda had just begun to notice Fiyero's detachment and Fiyero himself was torn between a girl whom he felt obliged to love and a girl whom he couldn't help but be attracted to. And Elphaba, of course, would never be satisfied unless all of the world's problems were solved. Her look said everything. Stubborn, passionate, intelligent, charismatic, an activist of the first degree. It was the eyes that did it, really. Their gaze seemed to pierce straight through whatever they met, even in the photograph, down to the very essence of whatever Elphaba happened to cast them upon, so much so that a person would not know whether to feel awed or violated by them. Her impression, that distinct Elphaba-ness,was also set in the determined line of her mouth, the headstrong tilt of her chin, the strange, catlike grace with which she held herself. No, Elphaba was not faking. She could never fake anything, really. So much about her was so straightforward, so honest. But the subtleties, the way she always wore the hat Galinda had given her, the way, in the picture, she seemed to be every so slightly closer to Fiyero than Nessarose, who was on her other side, these completed her. She unquestionably dominated the picture, in her own fashion. It was all of this, everything about her, even her passion for Fiyero, which she hid all of those years, these were what made Elphaba so strong.

Sometimes Glinda thought she was the most beautiful of all of them.

And now she was gone.

_ I'm going to have to get a frame for this, _thought Glinda the Good.


End file.
